We imagine that O'Connell imagined that getting his producer to tell Simon on air he was too late before talking to the show's PR - also on the Mic - was meant to be in some way amusing; trouble is, it backfired terribly.

Had it been one of the more smug Apprentice contestants, closing down the interview might have been funny. But as Simon is incredibly popular, and his reaction to being told he wouldn't be was a good-natured "fair enough, thank you anyway", it just made O'Connell and his team seem incredibly mean spirited.

The berating of press woman Emma, though, was even worse: petulant, self-important bullying:

"We haven't got time now Emma, you've missed your slot. This is Christian live on air. We arranged to do it at five past eight. I've been plugging this show for years. It's late, it's shabby, and Heart are getting it before me. No way. It's over."

If you're going to try and throw your weight about, Christian, you might want to check the your own heft first - the weasly "I've been plugging this show for years" is the sort of line deserving of a boardroom put-down. Where do you really think The Apprentice would be without the endorsement of Virgin's breakfast show? Probably still in the place it's in now, don't you think?

Still, we're sure Heart will be delighted to know they can have a couple of extra minutes with next week's firee.

3 comments:

James
said...

Oh dear. There was proper David Brent-style cringe-making on display there when 'Rocky' told the guest he was irreversibly banished from the show and then, caught out by the guest's reasonable response, actually started backpedalling to try and fit him in later. You can almost hear the producer frantically leafing forwards through the script when he realised the expected begging for leniency didn't happen. You're right, the show comes out of that sounding rather mean, whilst Simon sounds lovely."You can't come on now""OK""Hang on! Let me just see if we can fit you in later"

Rock 'n' Roll!!!

By the way, listen to Iain Lee's show, 10pm on Sunday night. It's barking and great fun. Better still, download the podcast so you don't have to sit through Chasing Cars.